This week’s You Capture theme is “Fresh“.   I didn’t have anything in mind, but as we were tooling around the backyard this evening – hubs was grilling up steaks and the kids were playing in the dirt — I knew I wanted to capture the spring flowers in our backyard before they withered away.   Here are my FRESH captures:

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My little one has been under the weather.  He’s been running a fever for several days now and although he is otherwise generally happy, it has started to wear him out.    Yesterday he lay down on the dirty digusting kitchen rug in front of the oven and drifted off to sleep.  At 11 in the morning.  Poor baby.

He had his two ever-present comforts close at hand: his thumb, and his Lammie.

See more You Capture moments from this week at Kidnapped By Suburbia (temporary host of You Capture, which normally lives at I Should Be Folding Laundry).

The theme for this week’s You Capture series is “A Moment“.

Spring has started to spring around here and I haven’t captured as many moments as I’d like because I’ve been living in an allergy-induced fog.  Today, however, I dragged myself outside and watched my oldest and youngest have some bouncy fun.  It was definitely a moment I’m glad to be part of.

The middle child isn’t pictured, since he was down and out with a nap (if only the younger child had followed suit today….).  However, super Sam got his own moment in the spotlight at his preschool’s Easter pageant performance.  No fancy solos or anything, but he was so excited to have mommy and daddy there for his special day and even took great pride in picking out his clothes for the day.  Here’s the moment’s captured from his big day:

Here are few video clips for Grandma and anyone else who needs a preschool choral fix:

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This week’s You Capture theme is “Shapes“.  Here’s a few examples from around the house this week:

This week’s “You Capture” theme is Kisses.  I wasn’t on the ball and didn’t get any good kissing pictures, so I decided to break protocol and look back over the years and see what kissing pictures I have taken in the past.   You won’t be impressed with my artistic eye, but hopefully the cuteness of my kids will help you see past that.

To see more kissyface, check out You Capture at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

Another snowfall has hit our area, so we are hunkered down in front of the fire.

Some of us are playing “Trouble”…

some of us are causing it …

and some of us are blogging about it :)

We’ve been working on some Valentine’s decorations, so I thought I would try and be arty and capture them and the snow together.  The results aren’t as impressive as I’d hoped.

These “stained glass” hearts were fun for the kids to make, and not too hard, as far as crafts go.

This tissue paper heart garland was my own idea,  although I’m sure others have thought of it.

I decided to use some of the tissue paper I hoard and fold it over to make a heart garland, ala paper dolls.  It does a nice job of dressing up my kitchen window, which has no curtain or window treatment.

Since this post is taking a colorful turn, how about a shot of these colorful characters?

We visited Grandad last weekend and he wanted me to take a new picture for his Facebook profile and this is what we got.  In addition to posing for pictures, the kids enjoyed some bike riding with Grandad.

Adam is starting to have fun on his little run bike.  He’ll be gliding in no time.

To wrap up this post and January in general, I have last colorful photo to share.  I got some fabric scraps from some kind Freecyclers, for a different Valentine’s craft I have planned.  One of the scraps was the remnant of a bridesmaid dress.  Wendy quickly commandeered it for herself.

It was hard to convince her she couldn’t wear this ensemble to school the next day.

This round of color amid the snow is linked up to I Should Be Folding Laundry’s “You Capture” series.  Hop over there for more colorful photos.

But I do LOVE her site and her creativity.  And her gift for making adorably scrumptious treats.   I was inspired by her gorgeous cake pops to make some for my daughter’s birthday party, as favors.   After all, wouldn’t you be proud to send home something so deliciously cute?

Alas, mine weren’t quite up the caliber of her treats.  Not surprising, since I am a rookie and she’s been doing these things for a while.  It was a bit of an exercise in frustration, at times.  But I do have to say, even tho my end result is vastly inferior to hers, I felt tremendous pride at my final outcome.

This post is linked up to the You Capture series at I Should Be Folding Laundry.  Hop on over to see more examples of “food”.

Today was a good day, a productive day, but it was one of those days.

It was cold, yucky, and no one wanted to curl up and take a nap, except me.

It started in the morning.  Adam has a lovey, “Lammie”.  He sleeps with it day or night, or he doesn’t sleep at all.   I dread the day we lose Lammie.   It has gotten beyond ratty so I decided to throw it in the wash this morning after he got up, so it would be clean and dry by nap time.   I took it when he was getting dressed by Daddy so he wouldn’t notice its absence.

A little later in the morning, I hear Adam crying “Lammie, Lammie!” and I can tell he and big brother Sam are fighting over something.  I round the corner and look down and wonder aloud why the floor is wet.   Then I look up and see the two boys fighting over one wet Lammie.   Apparently, when I put it in our front loader wsher, I didn’t close the bi-fold doors and he saw Lammie in the wash.   He then figured out how to press the cancel button long enough to stop the cycle and opened the door to retrieve his beloved Lammie.

He reluctantly allowed me to give Lammie “a bath” and I went about cleaning up the puddles all over the second floor (where the washer is) down to the downstairs family room.   It’s a good thing I love that kid  — he can make a mess faster than  you can sneeze.

From there, our day followed it’s usual pattern:  bus stop, preschool drop-off, etc.  In the course of the morning, I managed to splatter my sweater with chicken juice and let Adam play with the spice jar we just bought.  He thought it was a great shaker and I thought nothing of it, until he dropped it on the concrete basement floor and the glass broke, sending poppy seeds and glass shards everywhere.

On top of all of this, I am *still* ridiculously sore from a workout two days ago – one that my Crossfit fanatic husband suggested for me (15 lunges, 10 push-up, 15 sit-ups – repeat for 20 minutes).   Lowering myself to sit on the “throne” is painful.   Coughing reminds me of my under-used, over-exterted abdominal muscles, etc. etc.

Despite all the chaos and daily doses of insanity, it was a good day.  I managed to make chicken noodle soup from scratch AND another round of bagels (I was still jonsing for them).   And at dinner, only one of three children complained about the mushroom content of the soup.   Homemade soup, followed by Trader Joe’s chocolate pudding was a pretty good way to end the day.

Life can be real crazy, but it is also real good.

Visit I Should be Folding Laundry to see other examples of “Real Life“.

We’ve been enjoying a lovely fall.  I wanted to share some fall fotos that capture the beauty and the fun we’ve been up to:

The post is linked up to the You Capture carnival at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to shoot for this week’s You Capture assignment:  Still Life.

Glancing around my house, my eyes stopped on my little one’s bag that we use for his Mother’s Day Out programs.  I provided the bag, and the teachers helped the kids make them (considering the abilities of my little artist, I’m sure the teachers did 110% of the work).

I love that they did this simple little project because I know how quickly those little hands will grow.  It won’t be long before I look at this bag and wonder how my big boy got so big.   So, it seemed fitting to capture this still moment because time does anything but stand still where children are concerned.

Check out other Still Life posts over at I Should Be Folding Laundry.